August 13, 2009

It's about 1000 miles. Oh, how can we stop at some motel in Nebraska or Iowa when we've got 2 drivers and we can take turns snoozing in the passenger seat? Even with the vision-blurring lightning storm between Des Moines and Dubuque, we're going to keep going. Crossing the Mississippi, we're almost home. It's familiar territory. Familiar names — Mineral Point, Mount Horeb, Verona — make the final hour serene. Add to that the dawn...

... and we rolled into town at 6 a.m. — a good time for a long nap, in our own bed, in our own house, for the first time as husband and wife.

I've done that trip with a co-driver in about 20 hours clock time. Switch drivers every four hours, drink tea in stead of coffee, keep well hydrated and eat light meals that include lean protein. You'll make it without any trouble.

My mother was permanently brain damaged in an accident when my parent's attempted the same thing. My father fell asleep while my mother was sleeping in the passenger seat. She spent the rest of her life as a semi invalid after coming out of a 8 month coma.

It only takes a few seconds to have your life and the lives of all those who love you irrevocably changed.

@Laurie - I avoid coffee on long trips because it ultimately causes fatigue. Hot tea has less caffiene and more theobromine which contrbiutes to a longer period of wakefulness without the side effects of caffiene. And drink plenty of water. Dehydartion, even just a little, is tiring.

"...in our own bed, in our own house, for the first time as husband and wife."

O.K., now that the marriage stuff is all done, let's get down to brass tacks:

I still think it's weird to think of two people, who were both already married, now doing all this stuff with somebody else ("...in our own bed, in our own house") and pretending it's all normal. Actually, it can come off kind of creepy. I mean, I don't know the circumstances of Meade's divorce, but is his ex looking at the video he shot of Ann enjoying herself on the slide, and thinking he used to think that way of her? Does Meade care? She IS the person he, originally, pledged his life to - do her feelings matter? Does she matter? Or is she just an old used napkin now? A non-human? Or is he?

I don't wish to take anything away from you guys' happiness (and I sincerely meant my congratulations) but seeing and reading certain things related to this event does make one think - and cringe. You may be happy, but there's a sadness associated with it as well:

Make the drive from So Cal to Seattle every two years up the 5. This year it will be 4 in the mini-van.

Each driver goes 2 hours and 20 minutes, then change and bathroom whether everybody feels it or not. Front passenger stays awake for driver, and 2 in back can sleep. Everyone arrives somewhat refreshed - and safe.

Glad you guys made it back in one piece (OK, two). A drive like that sounds doable enough; a friend of mine did Dallas-Boston (27 hours) straight through a few weeks ago. Granted, he and his friends are a few decades your junior, but I think the bigger deal there is that they had three people, so one person could always stay awake in the "shotgun" seat to help keep the driver awake. To me, that's the only risky part of doing this with two people--the "always awake co-pilot" situation gets difficult.

In college, we took our jazz band on a straight-through drive from Denton, Texas (half an hour north of Dallas) to South Bend, Indiana for the Notre Dame Jazz Festival. The trick was that we were using rented vans, so only those 25 and over were allowed to drive. Four of us qualified in that area (two per van), which made for a rather brutal stint of driving. My only rule when I was at the wheel was that the co-pilot had to stay awake and talk to me; I went through three of them in a six-hour shift! By the time I handed over the wheel at breakfast, the guy in the shotgun seat was reading me the road atlas to keep us both awake, making note of the unusually-named towns we were passing along the way.

WV: reckss (no joke!). I'm glad you managed to avoid these on your long trip.

Crack - ever been divorced? One might hope to still be twisting the knife on the bitch who ruined one's life. Or, one might be over the bitterness and in a better place, where one supports another even while recognizing that things and people have moved on.

Crack is off base when he shoots first and asks questions later. And it is none of his business. As an attorney doing divorce work can tell you, the reasons for divorce are as different as two people are different. In any event, a Decree of Divorce is equivalent in laws of men and God to a death of a spouse which always freely establishes the Righteousness of subsequent re-marriages.

Yea, I am divorced - and fuck all that NewAge "move on" bullshit. (Wasn't that approach already royally condemned on this blog when Henry Louis Gates recently tried it?) You're just giving people permission to trash others - others who, in the case of marriage, suffered, sacrificed, and devoted themselves to you - for their own convenience. It's an endorsement of selfishness to-the-extreme. And the ultimate get out of jail free card.

Where are your ethics? Where is your heart? Why are you here? (And I don't mean the blog but the planet?) Is it to allow criminals to go free? Because we can all "move on" after they've ripped you off for every dime you own, right? Is it it to let murderers go free? Sure, you'll miss your loved one, but we can all "move on" after they've been put in the ground, right?

And I ask you again: If Meade's ex-wife is watching and reading all this, crying her eyes out as he left her for a semi-famous other, what does that say about Meade?

And, just because you insist people should "move on", that doesn't mean that - like jealousy, or envy, or any number of other normal human emotions that people have little control over - that's exactly possible. So you're actually demanding something that's inhuman - again: pretty much for your own convenience.

I can't help but wonder - since I know we grew up in the same country, went to the same schools, etc. - what is so hard about right and wrong with some people?

NewAge beliefs are the only answer I can come up with because, clearly, it's one thing we all don't share.

First, no, I acknowledge there are reasons and circumstances when re-marriage is an option in human affairs - but just because someone wants to ain't one of them.

Second, I disagree with the phrase "when the old one goes sour beyond salvaging" when the evidence is all around me that people, today, are against any form of self-reflection that might reveal how fucked up they may be.

I disagree with the phrase "when the old one goes sour beyond salvaging" when the evidence is all around me that people, today, are against any form of self-reflection that might reveal how fucked up they may be. If more people in marriages, or society itself, were adult enough to admit they're wrong - What's that? You believe in angels and no one can change your mind? Grow the fuck up! - we'd have less of this destructive nonsense because it would be less of an option. Right now, all you're endorsing is chaos - on anyone left out. Good people can be (and are) trashed by this attitude and we've seen the evidence everywhere. The fact nobody wants to address it is the most damning statement about is prevalence I can imagine:

Here's a story of a guy who had to kill his own kid before he'd accept that water isn't medicine.

That, to me, is what's going on with people today. An amazing display of stubborn stupidity that results in the innocent being hurt, evil occurring, and - always - a demand for leniency and "open-mindedness" when anyone who defends ethics, etc., speaks up.

It's wrong - all of it - and nothing will get better, without violence, until people decide to adhere to what's right again. Life has parameters.

My wife and I have done the long, switch out trips, normally closer to 750 miles than 1000 but a few longer. Takes some planning and willingness to stop at the expense of the schedule. But not everyone can and probably most shouldn't.

In any case, you probably don't want to know what over the road truckers do, in spite of DOT regs, its still rough.

You should chill out. You're starting to go all Andy Kaufman on us. Even within the context of an internet-based debate, you're stringing a good deal of sentences together there that don't seem to stick to a single, salient point.

Besides, if memory serves, the divorce rates among those that remarry is much lower than first-timers.

Your entire line of argument here seems to point to an absolute, arbitrary set of principles. Not that I'd disagree with that concept at all, I'm just surprised at the sentiment coming from you.

Every member of the clergy I've ever talked to about the subject has agreed that one of the only reasons allowed (at least in the Catholic/Lutheran realm) is abandonment. That doesn't have to be physical, it can be spiritual abandonment as well; a turning away from God. Since there's nothing one can do to make someone turn back toward God, you are permitted to splitski.

Crack, I don't understand your point. You think that people should be able to divorce, but not remarry? Then why divorce at all?

I'm not sure how someone who's divorced can then accuse someone who divorces and remarries of some violation of the eternal sactity of marriage. And I don't think that Meade left his spouse for Althouse; as I understand it, they were both divorced a long time ago.

I get the impression that this comment is meant to spice up your usual link-whoring a little bit.

Crack my friend...The vow to God to remain married "until death" do us part is a part of a legal system delivered thru Moses in which any adultery required the death penalty...get it? Then the mercy that came thru Jesus Christ also allows for a Christian to live a whole (in Peace) life if the other spouse has abandoned them. You are putting yourself under a harsher legal system than God ever thought men could endure.

I agree with that, but, in this particular case, there's a bit more to it than the standard arguments.

In the health care debate, regardless of when you (or anyone) thinks a fetus achieves personhood, health care is required during the pregnancy. In this context, one cannot simply dismiss the unborn as unborn. They are recipients of the same health care system we're all arguing about.

That's why I think this is possibly an area of the argument liberals would rue going down or having brought to light.

It's a particular pet peeve of mine when people take semantics and think they've made some kind of clever point. I was talking to traditionalguy in the language he relates to, nothing more. (If you've been around, you'll notice that I don't jump all over him for using that language either, but, instead, listen to his point - which, many times, I agree with - because a speaker's point is what you should be focussed on, instead of using such childish tactics.) I used to hate watching Donahue because he'd do that, too: Get a black person up and then act like they're stupid because he'd focus on how they spoke rather than what they were saying.

We were only in Denver for a day, stopping to see M's mother and sister. If we could have stayed another couple days, it would have been great to do a reader meetup, scheduled to make sure we could meet you. We'll be back though!